Abraham Lincoln, a History — Volume 02 eBook

At the time of the disruption, rumors were current
in Charleston that the movement, if not prompted,
was at least encouraged and sustained by telegrams
from leading Senators and Representatives then at their
Congressional duties in Washington. As the day
for reassembling in Baltimore drew near, the main
fact was abundantly proved by the publication of an
address, signed by Jefferson Davis, Toombs, Iverson,
Slidell, Benjamin, Mason, and some fourteen others,
in which they undertook to point out a path to union
and harmony in the Democratic party. They recited
the withdrawal of eight States at Charleston, and
indorsed the step without qualification. “We
cannot refrain,” said the address, “from
expressing our admiration and approval of this lofty
manifestation of adherence to principle, rising superior
to all considerations of expediency, to all trammels
of party, and looking with an eye single to the defense
of the constitutional rights of the States.”
They then alleged that the other Democratic States
remained in the convention only to make a further
effort to secure “some satisfactory recognition
of sound principles,” declaring, however, their
determination also to withdraw if their just expectation
should be disappointed. The address then urged
that the seceders should defer their meeting at Richmond,
but that they should come to Baltimore and endeavor
to effect “a reconciliation of differences on
a basis of principle.” If the Baltimore
Convention should adopt “a satisfactory platform
of principles,”—­and their votes might
help secure it,—­then cause of dissension
would have ceased. “On the other hand,”
continued the address, “if the convention, on
reassembling at Baltimore, shall disappoint the just
expectations of the remaining Democratic States, their
delegations cannot fail to withdraw and unite with
the eight States which have adjourned to Richmond.”
The address, in another paragraph, explained that
the seventeen Democratic States which had voted at
Charleston for the seceders’ platform, “united
with Pennsylvania alone, comprise a majority of the
entire electoral vote of the United States, able to
elect the Democratic nominees against the combined
opposition of all the remaining States.”

This was a shrewd and crafty appeal. Under an
apparent plea for harmony lurked an insidious invitation
to Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, Tennessee,
Kentucky, California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania to
join the seceders, reconstruct the Democratic party,
cut off all the “popular sovereignty” recusants,
and secure perpetual ascendency in national politics
through the consolidated South. The signers of
this address, forgetting their own constant accusation
of “sectionalism” against the Republicans,
pretended to see no impropriety in proposing this
purely selfish and sectional alliance. If it
succeeded, their triumph in the Union was irresistible
and permanent; if it failed, it served to unite the
South for secession and a slave confederacy.